


Quintuplet

by samchandler1986



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-02
Updated: 2015-05-02
Packaged: 2018-03-26 19:26:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 9,382
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3861907
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/samchandler1986/pseuds/samchandler1986
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Five observations on Human/Time Lord relations</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. One

_The first time it happens, she is drunk and he is jealous._

She staggers a little as they slip away from the Grand Ballroom. The party is winding down, into an apparently pan-Galactic end stage of slow music and couples clinging to one another.

“You should probably take your shoes off,” says the Doctor waspishly.

He’s probably right. They are asymmetric silver blocks that looks more like space shuttle spare parts than footwear. They complement a dress that is Victorian governess in shapely structure and positively space age in material. She looks like an extra in a Lady Gaga video, but fabulously so.

“If I am entirely honest… I’m not sure how.” She can’t quite remember the instructions the little green woman in the shop gave her when she was strapped into them, hours ago now. They felt fine when she was dancing. Now, faced with a long walk to her chamber, she is suddenly aware of a heat in the balls of her feet. Her ankles ache. Combined with the slight spin the hyper-vodka lends to her surroundings, walking is quite an effort.

“You do realise we’ve got three flights of stairs to climb?”

She makes a face. “No. Seriously?”

“It’s a castle, Clara. Of course there are stairs.”

“Yes,” she argues, aware she’s moving rather more sideways than forward now, and gently rebounding off the wall. “But it’s a crystal castle in space. You’re telling me they built ballrooms with glass ceilings that look out onto gas nebulas, but they didn’t think to install lifts?”

His unamused expression apparently indicates this is so.

She pouts. “But I’m a Princess.”

“Yes,” he agrees, looking very much as if he is regretting this particular cover story with every fibre of his being. “Yes you are, Princess Oswald. And that’s why you have a bedroom in the Fuschia Spire, as befits your station.”

She comes to a stop, leaning against the glowing corridor wall for support. “No, it’s no good. You’ll have to fetch the TARDIS and give me a lift.”

“The TARDIS is not a taxi service.” He says it with the kind of severity he normally reserves for crazed alien dictators.

“Look, I am not the one that put me in these shoes. You needed me to get us in here and look like we belonged. These shoes are… well, they’re your fault.”

The signs are not promising. He is surveying her with something very close to contempt. “You really can’t walk?”

“No.”

He sighs, deeply, weighing up his options.

And then he sweeps her off her feet.

It’s not as romantic as it sound. She almost head-butts the wall, instinctively lurching away as he lunges for her. She’s not at all sure of what he’s doing until she finds herself in his arms, one hand curled around his neck.

“Thanks,” she squeaks.

“Don’t mention it.” He risks a glance down at her, face like thunder. “Seriously, don’t. I’m already regretting this.”

They move in embarrassed silence for a few minutes, uncomfortably aware of how close they are to one another, as he carries her up crystalline staircases. Outside, behind glass windows of cathedrallike proportion, the nebula twinkles. For a moment she forgets the awkwardness of her position and marvels at the sight.

“I found out where the Nobility plans to hunt tomorrow,” she says, attempting to keep things business-like, as if he carries lightly inebriated companions about all the time.

“The Aldebaran asteroid park,” he supplies.

“Yep.” She pops the p, trying to control her irritation. “That’s the one. How do you know?”

“I hacked the Crown Princes’ scheduler.”

“Then can I ask why you needed me to talk to him all night?”

“I needed a distraction,” he replies, as if his answer is obvious, “And what better distraction than a beautiful stranger arriving to flirt with Prince Pudding-Brain?” He says flirt like it’s a dirty word, but even drunk she catches the compliment. A flush creeps into her neck. _Probably the vodka_ , she tells herself. “Anyway, it didn’t seem like much of a hardship.”

“I was doing what you asked!”

“Oh yes. Selflessly sacrificing yourself at the altar of seducing an attractive man.”

“Doctor…” She resists the initial urge to slap him silly; he might drop her. Anyway, she has a better weapon. “Are you jealous?”

He scowls down at her again. “Why would I be that?” As if the question is ridiculous. Her weapon turned against her; she feels unexpectedly wounded by his contempt for the very notion.

“You smell of bananas,” she says grumpily, aware it’s not the most cutting of insults.

“That’ll be the daiquiris.”

He kicks open a set of double doors and carries her into her chamber. It is a vision in pink crystal and gold veneer, gauzy drapes framing the biggest bed she has ever seen in her life. He dumps her onto the silken sheets unceremoniously, whipping the sonic screwdriver out of his pocket.

“What are you doing?” she asks, uneasy, as he points it at her legs. The answer is immediately obvious as her shoes unbuckle themselves, falling from tired feet onto the floor with a very solid clunk. “Oh. Thank you.”

“My pleasure.” He is staring at her, waiting for the next line, inscrutable. She has no idea what he wants. “What?”

“The dress.”

Her hand clamps down on the neckline instinctively as he brandishes the screwdriver. “What about the dress?”

“Do you need that unbuckling too?”

“Um.” It’s a fair question. She gives the fastenings, hidden in the fabric somewhere under her right arm, a cursory examination. “No,” she manages, slightly strangulated, “No, I think I can manage these ones.”

“Good. Right.” He hesitates for a moment, hands flapping, and then lies down next to her on the bed. Ram-rod straight, with his hands folded in his lap and boots still on his feet, the move is hardly an obvious overture. Nonetheless, it marks a first for the Doctor, who claims to not need sleep.

“Er,”she manages.

He opens one eye. “What?”

“Why are you in the bed?”

“I’m resting. Obviously.”

“But you don’t need sleep.”

“Not normally, no. But I want to metabolise the alcohol I was forced to consume this evening to maintain cover. It’ll go faster if I do it lying down.” A horrible suspicion presents itself for consideration: that the Doctor is just as drunk as she is. She supposes it’s a mercy they didn’t fall down the stairs. “It’s a big bed,” he continues, “More than enough room for two. I won’t be any bother. I’ll just lie here very quietly and let you get on with sleeping.”

“Oh. Right. Okay then…”

He shuts his eye. She watches him for a few minutes, breathing deep and even. It’s a passable impression of sleep, or at least deep meditation. She turns her attention to her dress. Some of the scaffolding is poking her in the ribs and it needs to come off. She turns away from the hopefully sleeping Doctor and fiddles surreptitiously with the fastenings. This goes on for some time. To her mounting horror the dress is at least as complicated as the shoes.

He sighs. “You can’t unbuckle that either, can you?”

She debates, briefly, the merits of hitting him with one of the shoes. They’re quite solid seeming. They’d probably hurt. “No,” she eventually admits.

“Would you like some assistance?”

“Maybe,” she replies, through gritted teeth.

He sits up behind her, his fingers brushing against hers on the fastenings. “Yes, it’s quite a complicated one,” he says quietly. The breath that carries his words stirs the hair on the back of her neck. She blushes again, and hopes he doesn’t notice.

“Are you blushing?”

Of course he notices. “No,” she lies.

“Why would you be blushing?” he asks. “I’m not being rhetorical, by the way.”

She makes a noise of frustration. “Doctor, stop being deliberately dim. You. My friend−my good friend−my totally alien but very definitely male friend… You. Are undoing my dress.”

“That’s such a human way of looking at things,” he huffs, “There’s plenty of species where this is completely acceptable behaviour between friends. The rest of the galaxy isn’t half as… as sex-obsessed as you lot are.”

“I am not sex obsessed.” The pressure on her ribs eases. He has unfastened the dress but his hand is still resting lightly on her back, as if he has forgotten about it.

“I’m not blaming you,” he continues, in that special tone of voice he has that suggests he probably is. “It’s a species thing. I’m just saying not everyone out there is as crazed about it as humans are.”

She leans back against him, his hand slipping to touch the inch of bare skin he has revealed. She can feel the staccato double beat of his hearts through his chest. His pulse jumps when she turns her head. “Are you seriously telling me,” she whispers, almost into the crook of his neck, “That you’re not thinking about it at all right now?”

He looks down at her, almost nose to nose. “No.”

She’s not sure what he means, that’s the trouble with the Doctor. He could be answering her question, or he could be telling her to stop this dangerous line of enquiry altogether. She could pull away now, turn over, go to sleep. Pretend this never happened. Keep things under control.

“No?”

His fingers shift, ever so slightly, tracing the skin over her ribs. “I am… Thinking.”

The rest of the sentence is lost as her lips meet his. She expected tentative, exploratory, but he kisses her like the world is about to end.

“Thought so,” she grins, when he briefly surrenders her mouth.

* * *

 

She is unsurprised to find, when she finally wakes up, that he is gone.

Her dress is neatly laid over the chaise-lounge, shoes paired on the floor beside it. Something slightly less formal and probably acceptable daytime attire has been hung up for her on the dressing screen.

It could almost have been a dream. Perhaps it will become that for both them, in time. A moment’s extra madness, set aside from the day-to-day reality of their impossible life together. Right now, lips bee-stung from all the kissing and muscles aching sweetly, it is still very real. There is a glass of water on the side-table and what looks very like two Alka-Seltzer tablets. She pops them into the glass, enjoying the fizz for a moment, and notices the note.

_Clara,_

_For the hangover. When you’re done sleeping your life away, come and find me in the shuttle bays._

_Doctor_

Perfunctory, concise. Tiny bit rude. But he’s never left a note before and she knows it’s his way of saying he has no regrets, either.


	2. Two

_The second time it happens the world was on fire._

The klaxon wails, painfully loud, a noise she feels reverberate inside her chest.

The ship is going down, which was kind of the plan. They are still _on_ the ship, however, which was not.

He stands on the burning bridge, flames beginning to lick the walls, and smiles with satisfaction at the image on the cracked view screen. The colonist’s lifeboat is powering away, the tractor beam no longer tethering them to the Cassini Warship. The Warriors have fled, a hundred harmless rescue pods glittering in space behind their crippled ship. No one died here today. Just this once, everybody lived.

Except possibly the Doctor and Clara.

He’s having one of his moments, she can tell. Drunk on his own cleverness and the destruction all around them, he’s forgotten that once they lose orbit and the ship starts its descent proper they have no chance of escape. Even if they somehow made it down in one piece, Thalos IV is a proto-planetary mess of fiery volcanoes and raging storms of burning gas. Not even the Doctor can regenerate out of that.  

She grabs his arm, unable to make herself heard over the awful noise of the red alert, and shakes him.

He comes back to himself, head snapping round to see her frightened face, suddenly realising their predicament. He catches her wrist and they run down smoke filled corridors. She can barely see, barely breathe. The smoke is almost too much. But she trusts him. When he pulls open a door and stuffs her into what seems like a cupboard she assumes it is all part of his plan…

She opens her eyes.

“Are you okay?” he asks, sounding genuinely concerned for once.

“Yes,” she says, her voice hoarse.

“You were a bit… passed out for a moment there.”

“The smoke.”

“Yes, of course.”

She blinks. She has assumed until this moment that he is holding her upright in her swoon, but that doesn’t seem quite right. They still seem to be jammed in a cupboard, dimly lit with flashing LEDS, walls covered in buttons and switches.

“Doctor, where are we?”

“Escape capsule,” he says, with a grin, “On our way back to the TARDIS.”

She reaches behind her experimentally, fingers brushing against the wall. The capsule can be no more than three feet wide.

 “Bit… intimate, isn’t it?”

“They’re usually for just a single person,” he explains.

“But we have to share? Great.” A thought occurs. “Doctor, how _long_ will it take the capsule to reach the TARDIS?”

She can tell from the look on his face, straight away, that she’s not going to like the answer.

He pretends to do the calculations. “Oh, about… nine hours or so.”

“Nine. Hours.”

“Give or take a margin of error. Ten percent.”

“There isn’t even room to sit down,” she says, slightly despairingly.

“Well…” He is wearing an expression that can only be called ‘shifty.’

“Well what?” she says, mentally preparing herself. “Spit it out.”

“I changed the artificial gravity when we got in. So we could stand up.”

“How does one _normally_ occupy an escape capsule then?” she says, and some part of her brain marvels that sentences like these just come out of her mouth now, that this probably counts as a fairly standard day for her.

He opens and shuts his mouth a few times, trying to think of the right words, and decides to go for a practical demonstration instead. He flips a switch and gently the capsule seems to fall over backwards.

She is no longer standing in front of him. She is lying on top of him. Or she would be, if she wasn’t balancing on her hands and feet to prevent herself from squashing him.

“So, just to be clear, my options are standing with my face practically in your armpit for nine hours, or lying on top of you?”

“I’m sorry,” he offers. He doesn’t _look_ very sorry. He’s still grinning from their victory over the Cassinis.

Her arms are beginning to ache. _Screw it._ She gently lowers herself down, lying with her head on his chest. He is too bony to be truly comfortable, and the acrid smell of the burning Warship hangs on them both. She’s definitely not enjoying it.

“This is pretty much a hug,” she says, muffled slightly, although to be honest he’s been a bit better about that sort of thing since what she calls The Fuchsia Spire Incident, two months ago.

They still haven’t spoken about it. She doesn’t regret it. It didn’t change anything between them, so it counts as a win. Just an itch they had to scratch once, she supposes.

“Nah,” he replies, looking down at her as she glances up at him in surprise, “I can still see your face.”

This is _particularly_ true right at that moment, thanks to her ill-timed movement. They are almost nose to nose. Like the Fuchsia Spire Incident. Except this time she is already on top of him.

She hastily buries her head in his chest again.

* * *

If someone had asked her, four months ago… No, wait. Is it four already? She counts the weeks in her head, trying to remember precisely how much time has passed since Christmas Eve and her flight to the TARDIS. Probably four months. Give or take a margin of error. Maybe ten percent.

If someone had asked her before Christmas whether she’d be able to fall asleep lying on top of the Doctor like this, she would have laughed. Except the person doing the asking in this scenario would probably have to be Danny, as no one else knew about the Doctor, and actually that wouldn’t be very funny at all…

She feels a sudden gut-wrenching pang of sadness and opens her eyes again.

Even more surprising than _her_ snooze is the fact that the Doctor is snoring lightly. She can’t quite believe it. And she can’t reach her ‘phone to record the moment, for posterity and a trump card in every argument they ever have again about ‘superior species.’ Not without waking him up.

Now that _is_ unbelievable.

With little else to do, she lays her head back down on his chest, watching the play of the blinking LEDs and hoping to fall asleep again.

“Clara,” he breathes, after a long while.

“Yes?” she whispers back. There is no response and after a moment she realises he is still asleep.

“Her name is Clara.”

She can’t help but smile. “Are you dreaming about me, Doctor?” she murmurs.

“My Clara.”

“In some ways,” she agrees, “But only if you don’t tell anyone.”

* * *

She opens her eyes again.

“Oh you’re awake at last,” he says and she could crow with delight.

“I was awake before,” she says jubilantly, “And _you_ were asleep.”

“Certainly not. You must have dreamt that.”

“No, I _definitely_ wasn’t.”

“You’ve got no evidence.”

“Urgh, I knew that would happen.” She shifts uncomfortably. “Doctor, take the sonic out of your pocket.”

The instant the words are out of her mouth she realises her mistake.

“Uhm,” he gulps, and she tries desperately to think of a lie that can preserve his dignity.

“No,” she yelps, “Sorry, my fault, just my belt… buckle.” She is fooling no one. “I’m sorry. I didn’t think.”

He flicks the artificial gravity, and she regains her feet. She can still only put inches between them in the cramped cabin, and frankly it isn’t enough.

“Please tell me we’re near the TARDIS?”

He checks the read out. “At least an hour away. I’m sorry, I can’t−”

“It’s okay,” she says, over his apology, “It’s not your fault. I mean… it’s just biology. And I have…” She trails off, not sure whether or not she should finish the sentence as she originally intended. _I don’t regret it_ , she tells herself, _And neither does he._ “I have seen it before.”

She blinks, trying very hard to stop herself from thinking back to the last occasion.

“I suppose that’s true,” he says levelly, addressing the console panels behind her head.

There is no way out. They are stuck in this capsule for the next hour. At least.

She draws in a breath and leans back in against him, screwing her eyes shut as she buries her head in his chest. “Just talk to me Doctor. About anything.” She casts about for a suitably distracting topic. “Where are we going next?”

She can feel him relax a little having reached a safer subject. “I was thinking Iridonia. They have waterfalls there that make Niagara look like the fountain in a hotel lobby.”

“Sounds nice. What’s the catch?”

“Well there is a _rumour_ that the falls are the home of the legendary Krall, creatures of light and energy that possess living souls in order to experience a mortal existence…”

She lets him prattle on, relived that the moment of awkwardness is dispelled, and trying not to dwell on how pleasant it is to be curled up like this. She flicks the artificial gravity back after a few minutes of expansive discourse on the refraction indexes of living beings, settling down as he continues about sentient gas creatures. She is absolutely _not_ thinking about what he was dreaming of when he said her name.

Sudden silence. She realises his last statement was a question. “Hmm?”

“I said: you’re not listening to me, are you?”

She makes the mistake of looking up at him; they are nose to nose once more.

“No,” she admits, before she kisses him.

She half expects resistance, but once again he reacts like she is water and he is dying of thirst. Like the crystal chamber in the Fuchsia Spire, the capsule feels like a private universe; a tiny pocket of time and space disconnected from their real lives, where this sort of thing can happen.

There isn’t really room to undress properly. She fumbles his shirt open and he manages to pull her jumper up, just enough to feel skin against skin as they kiss−

_Bleep-bleep_.

“Proximity alarm,” he says, against her mouth.

“Ok,” she says, stealing another kiss.

He switches the gravity, still holding her close. “TARDIS should extrude the defence shield so there’s breathable air between the doors.”

“Should?”

He ignores this. “I’ll open the door of our capsule and we should just… float across.”

Of course, it doesn’t work that way. They tumble out of the capsule and land in a breathless heap inside the console room.

She expects him to pull her upright, to put an end to their moment of capsule induced madness and send them spinning off on their next adventure.

She does _not_ expect his mouth to capture hers once again, long fingers curling around the hem of her jumper.  

But when has the Doctor ever been predictable?    

* * *

 

She is surprised that the TARDIS so much as lets her _find_ a bathroom, let alone one with fluffy white towels and an enormous free-standing bathtub.

Still expecting a trap, she turns on the hot tap. Warm water gushes out. She fills the whole bath, expecting at any minute it to turn cold, or that the bath will spring a mysterious leak. Some punishment for her misdemeanour. They have breached a fairly fundamental rule of TARDIS etiquette, hanky-panky in the console room no less.

Nothing happens. She climbs into the tub and relaxes back in the hot water, washing away the smoke and sweat.

Could it be the old girl actually _approves_?


	3. Three

_The third time it happens, he thought she was dead._

Outside snow is falling. She can see the flakes swirl across the dirty window. Her fingers are numb as she picks, pointlessly, at her bonds. The thick rope bites painfully into her wrists. She needs a better escape plan. There has to be something in this miserable shack. A rusty nail. A splinter of bleached wood, even.

The chain manacled to her ankle rattles. She’d forgotten about that. Hardly seems necessary. Where would she go? Outside the plains are death, even to the well prepared. Let alone a girl in a tattered blue summer dress and no shoes. If she’s to have any chance of survival, the shack is it.

They wind moans. At least she hopes it’s the wind.

Her scrabbling fingers find the nail she’s looking for, twisted out of a warped floorboard. Most excellent; she can use it to saw through her rope bonds _and_ pick the manacle. Not that she know how to pick a lock, of course, but when the choice is learn quickly or get eaten she’s sure she’ll figure it out.

The snow is piled up against the window by the time she frees her hands, wrists bleeding freely. Not good. The smell of blood will draw them. And she still has to learn to pick locks before sunset, which looks to be fairly imminent given the pinkish hue of the light outside.

“You’re not going to die,” she tells herself firmly, and sets to work picking the lock.

In the end, it proves easier to jam the nail into the rusty hinge of the manacle and force it open that way, just as the light is really beginning to fade. Now what? She crawls over to the window, ears straining for any sound that isn’t the wind or the creak of the shack. She chances a peek outside.

The snow is a boon to her, reflecting the light of the rising moon. The plains are a white expanse, all the way to the mountains on the horizon. No tracks, no idea where her captors have gone. Mercifully free of dark shapes.

She crosses to the door, still keeping low. No lock. Nothing in the empty room to barricade it with. Well, she probably used up all her luck finding that nail. Time for clever.

She opens the door carefully; waits in case something she’s missed should come snarling out of the darkness. That’s what she tells herself anyway, as she screws up her courage to step outside.

The cold is almost unbearable, her feet _burn_ as she pads across the snow, keeping her back to the walls of the shack. The other side of the building affords a similar view of nothing but snow-covered saw grass. There is a mess of rubbish out back, including a very solid iron crowbar. Her fingers close around the cold metal, a weapon. She lets out a shaky sigh of relief.

Logically she knows it won’t be enough. Not if they come in the sort of numbers they’ve seen elsewhere. But some animal part of her brain is grateful for this gift. _Just let them try_ , it says, buoyed up on the adrenalin that sustains her in cold and pain.

She continues searching. There is a metal drum filled with cold ashes and half a canister of petrol. Her heart thumps painfully as she picks it up and hears the slosh of fluid inside. She unscrews the lid and sniffs. Definitely petrol.

Out in the dark something screams. High, unearthly and agonised. She flinches, the immediate instinct to run back inside, to slam the door against the terror of the plains and pretend it affords her any shred of protection.  She draws in a deep breath. Time to get a move on. They are coming.

She gathers up the dry straw in the shack, pulls loose floorboards and boards from the walls, ringing the cabin with a rough circle of combustibles. It goes slower than it might, as she’s constantly looking over her shoulder. Are they near? She wastes valuable seconds squinting out over the plains to see.

Her stomach contracts. There is movement now, silhouettes against the snow impossible to make out clearly. She doesn’t need to see them. She knows that her time is almost up. They have found her.

She whimpers softly, not a sound she’s conscious of making, an animal noise of terror. She summons the ghost of him in her memory, chiding her, eyes flinty beneath beetling brows _. “Don’t be a pudding-brain,”_ he snaps, _“You’re not dead yet.”_

She strikes the crowbar against the busted manacles, which clang horribly. She hears their excited moaning, carried on the wind, as she hits the manacles again. _Ringing the dinner bell_ , she thinks macabrely, and raises the bar a third time. Sparks fly from the struck iron, landing on a petrol soaked rag she has placed in a rusted bucket. It goes _whump_. Shaking with relief that she hasn’t set herself on fire along with it, she grabs a long stick, thrusting it into the bucket.

It catches alight and she almost cries with happiness. Using the pole, she carefully ignites the piles of hastily gathered, petrol-splashed debris that encircle the shack. In the flickering light she can see them now, shambling towards her. The first of them is only a few hundred metres away.

She has done all she can. Now she has to hope the fire will keep them away long enough for the Doctor to find her. There really isn’t another escape option at this point. Assuming he wasn’t also captured by the raiders and is himself trussed up in some plains shack…

She derails that train of thought, clambering up on big drum and pulling herself onto the roof through sheer determination. She doesn’t think they can climb, but if enough of them turn up it won’t matter. Those at the back will simply climb over the bodies of their colleagues to reach her and pull her to pieces. If she’s lucky.

She’s not sure which is worse, the constant rasping groans of the creatures as they shuffle around the circle of flame she has created, or when one of them decides to try and cross the boundary and sets itself alight. They don’t seem to feel it, they stumble onwards towards the shack. They reach out to her, mad eyes and bloodied teeth glinting in the light of their own limbs aflame, until enough of them crumbles to ash and they burn away where they fall. Others go up like torches, throwing more light over a scene straight from a horror movie, hundreds of them moving towards her in the dark.

One of them−he must have been an enormous man in life−makes it all the way to the walls of the shack. He reaches up and the flames from his body begin to char the wood of the walls. There is no adrenalin left to pump in her veins, only a leaden certainty that her time has run out, and the grim realisation that burning to death might be the better option of the two available.

She closes her eyes, trying to leave the crackle-pop of roast zombie, the horrible charred flesh smell and the horrendous moans of her would-be killers behind. She thinks of Danny, his handsome face smiling from her memory before it twists, turning into the ruin of his cyber-self.

She doesn’t want to die like this, overwhelmed with grief and regret, doesn’t want to die at all.

She thinks of him instead, of his old young face, eyes full of tears as she told him of Trenzalore. The fear he couldn’t hide. The fact they went there anyway. “ _Don’t be afraid,”_ he said. And she won’t be. Not now, not ever.

The flames billow, boiling up the side of the shack where the big zombie has immolated. She stands, tall as she can. _“Five-foot one and crying,”_ he says in her strobing memory; the smoke is sending her dizzy. “ _You never stood a chance.”_

And then she hears it, that sound that brings hope to the universe. Wheezing into being, the TARDIS lands on the roof.

He throws open the door as she stumbles home, catching her by the arms and pulling her into a wordless embrace as the door slams shut behind her. She can still count on one hand the number of times her has held her like this.

Eventually he lets her go, retreating to the console and setting them in flight. She is shaking, from relief or exhaustion; maybe both. For a second she finds herself wishing he’d come back to hold her again. Predictably he does not, biting his thumb instead as he flicks switches and taps keys, avoiding looking at her.

 “You got the TARDIS back, then?” A truly pointless question, but she has to re-start communication somehow.

“Yes.”

She doesn’t ask how. Something in his tone suggests she might not like the answer.

“Did they… the others from the Resistance… did they get away? Are they going to be okay?”

She almost quails as he meets her eyes at last, such fury in his face. “They got away. I don’t know if they’re going to be okay. Frankly, I don’t care.”

“Doctor−”

“No,” he snaps, “Don’t. Don’t make their excuses. They had one instruction. Just one. To keep you safe.”

“Doctor,” she says gently, because she understands their reasons even if she can’t quite forgive them. “You were the person of strategic value. You could help them find the cure.”

“Could,” he says heavily, “Yes, could.” He crosses to her again at last, taking her hands and examining the wounds on her wrists. “I _could_ have helped them. If they’d done that one simple thing that I asked.”

Shocked, she pulls her hands out his grip. “Tell me you didn’t just walk away?”

He looks at her, almost sneering at her expression of mingled horror and anger. She knows he thinks her a fool. “No,” he says at last, voice thick, “How else do you think I got the TARDIS back?”

“Their planet was _dying_ Doctor.”

“That doesn’t excuse what they did.”

She knows that if she pursues this any further they are going to boil over into a blazing row, and she’s too tired for that right now. A part of her can’t quite believe she’s arguing _for_ the people that sold her to their enemies, anyway. She decides to let the matter drop. She lets him take her hands again and finish his examination.

“Did they bite you?” he asks.

“No.”

“Good. The vaccine I developed works but it isn’t pleasant. I was hoping you wouldn’t need it.”

She nods, too drained to think of a suitable reply.   

“A bath and a nice cup of tea,” he continues, “That’s what you need. I have something that can fix your wrists but it’ll be better if you’re clean first.”

* * *

Half an hour later she is happy to agree, warm again after a long soak in her favourite tub, and wrapped in an enormous fluffy bathrobe. He knocks on her bedroom door as she twists her hair in another towel.

“You can come in.”

He enters awkwardly, carrying a steaming mug in one hand and a first aid kit in the other. He thrusts the mug at her, instinct making her sniff the liquid suspiciously before she dares to take a sip.

“It’s just tea,” he says, feigning offense.

“Sorry, but it’s not like you don’t have previous.” She spent a day bright blue once, turquoise head to toe, after he decided to switch her Lancashire Tea for something more exciting. Clearly her threat to exact an unholy revenge should it _ever_ happen again has been taken seriously. She risks a sip and tastes home; rainy afternoons with her gran along the seafront.

He sits down gingerly on her bed, clearly cataloguing all the changes she’s wrought to the room since the last time he saw it. For once, criticism of her decorative choices remain unspoken. “I’ve got the dermal regenerator.”

She puts down her tea and sits next to him obediently, holding out her wrists. The wound from the rope is livid scarlet. He is scowling again as he gently takes her hand, turning it this way and that as he tracks the regenerator over the damaged skin.

“I’m sorry,” he says at last, when the wound has faded to a faint yellow bruise. He puts down the regenerator, long fingers are still folded around hers.

“Don’t be,” she says lightly, “I was the one who said we should stay for a while with the Resistance.” She ignores the drumbeat of a racing heart sitting like this, quiet and close, seems to cause now. It’s his anger, she lies to herself, the barely contained rage just under the surface that scares her a little. No other reason.

“I thought that I had lost you.”

She meets those ice blue eyes, full of fire and rage, and underneath it all a curious dread. He used to be so sad; a man grieving for all that he had lost. Now the more he finds−of himself, of his past and his planet and his future−the more he fears. She can see straight through his spikey armour of bad temper and disdain, right to the terror at the core of him

_Never_ , she should say, a reassuring lie. _You’ll have to try harder than that_ , she could quip, but it sounds a bit crass even in her head.

“Doctor,” she says instead, trying honesty for once instead, “I can’t promise that one day you _won’t_. But you have to know; all of this… it was worth it. I wouldn’t be here otherwise. I can’t give it up any more than you can. And I wouldn’t change it for the world.”

His mouth quirks at that, just a little, turning up at the corner. “Good to know.”

“Yes. Good.” She wishes he would look away. If he could just go back to avoiding her eyes again, like in the console room, she could swallow the butterflies in her stomach and stop thinking about his mouth. 

Instead, he does the unthinkable, leaning in towards her. Slow but inexorable. Her eyes close automatically and his lips brush hers, a gentle question. The dwindling rational core of herself doesn’t know how she should answer, but it’s too late. Every other fibre of her being is saying _yes_ , and it’s her turn to kiss him like he’s the only other person in the universe.

* * *

Afterward, she expects him to leave. To make an excuse about repair jobs that need doing, or a joke about the human need for sleep.

Instead, he curls around her in the dark, his hands clasped around hers, face buried in the nape of her neck.

She closes her eyes and tries not to think too hard about what it might mean. 


	4. Four

_The fourth time it happens he is maudlin and she is clever._

Usually the best way to focus on a vexing problem is to attend to the TARDIS. There’s a myriad little repairs on his ever growing to-do list. The tick and hum of her circuits and the less tangible _sense_ of her, all around him, are a reassuring comfort.

Not today. The scatter of books on the library table are Clara’s choices. Her mug is on the draining board in the kitchen, the dress she wore to dinner still hanging at the front of the TARDIS wardrobe. Every room inhabited by an echo of her. He can’t think in the TARDIS today.

He goes to the gardens instead. Technically the Lost Gardens of Treloath, an archaeological treasure that won’t be rediscovered by the inhabitants of the nearby Midian Cluster for another three hundred years, if one takes a linear path through time. He walked in the shadow of the walls here when the place was first planted, however. _Lost_ is always a relative term.

He leaves the TARDIS at the feet of the great pyramid, a landmark even he should be able to find again, and strolls in the vague direction of the ceremonial pools. It is as idyllic as he remembers; the green smell of growth and chirrup of birds the most pressing stimuli. No other soul, save one asleep on the TARDIS, for a hundred light years in every direction…

Unbidden, the thought of her has followed him out of the doors, even into this place of supreme peace. He sighs. There is a weathered stone bench overlooking the pools. He takes a seat and tries to empty his mind once again of all things Clara.

It’s too soon, that’s the thing. He’s barely shed the skin that he learned to love River in. And Clara is _human_ for another. Not human with a dash of TARDIS magic thrown in to gift her regenerations and understanding of Time Lord science. Just plain old _Homo sapiens_.

Was Rose not bitter pill enough to teach him?

He sighs, and not for the first time wishes he could ignore the compulsion to find someone to share the universe with. He should travel alone. _Be_ alone. Except of course he tried that before, the last time fragile little humans broke his hearts, and who was it with power to drag him out of isolation but Clara? For a moment he feels every day of his two thousand years old; bone weary with it all. The loneliness of surviving when all around him withers and dies. 

_Third thing_ , he thinks. _This face_. Regeneration is always playing catch up. Trenzalore needed this body, all scowls and sharp words; not the kindly youth he wore there for centuries. And by the time he _found_ this curmudgeon within himself, a man with the brittle strength to withstand a thousand years of isolation? The universe had moved on.

He is on his feet now, driven up by the rising frustration.  There are rounded pebbles scattered around the edge of the pools. He picks up a handful, weighing them thoughtfully in his hand before lobbing them into the water. There is a curious satisfaction to be had in disturbing the stillness, shattering the peace of the place.

He has to put an end to these moments of weakness. Put things back in their proper context. Go back to being just… Just what, exactly? More stones break the surface of the pool as he throws them with renewed ferocity. Her friend? Her _best_ friend? The kind that can watch happily from the side lines when she finds happiness with someone that matches her in youth and beauty, rather than mercilessly deride any fellow she takes up with? Ha!

“Should you really be doing that?”

He freezes. The last stone falls from his still upraised hand. He spins on his heels.

“Clara!”

She is standing, one hand on her hip; a wicker basket in the other. As he struggles to find more words she sets it down and fumbles the leather straps open. A picnic blanket emerges, a huge woollen thing worthy of an Enid Blyton story, which she precedes to spread out on the ground.

“How did you know where I was?”

She raises an eyebrow, amused. “I always know where you are.” He looks nonplussed at this odd pronouncement and she laughs. “I scanned for you on the TARDIS before I set out.”

“Oh.” He sits down opposite her, crossing his legs.

“Are you okay?”

“Yes.”

She cocks her head sideways, clearly dubious. “Really? Didn’t exactly look like okay when you were chucking stones in there.”

He shrugs. “I was just checking.”

“Checking for what?”

“Oh you know. Monsters. Aliens. Sentient fish people evolved since the last time I came to visit.”

“And?”

“I think we’re safe enough.”

She laughs again; he’s horrified by the way his hearts leap at the sound. “Famous last words.”

He tries to distract himself with a new problem. “What’s in the basket?”

“A picnic.” She begins pulling out sandwiches, bottles of ginger beer and lemonade, scones, cakes and fruit. Seeing his expression at the surprising capacity of the small wicker basket she smiles slyly. “It’s bigger on the inside.”

“Of course. I was wondering where I’d put that.”

A couple of books and cushions follow the food. She props herself up with a hardback in one hand and sandwich in the other. He selects his own sandwich, pulling apart the bread to inspect the tomato slices minutely before eating. Catching her disapproving look, he scowls. “What?”

“Oh, nothing.” She reads another line or two and wriggles pleasurably in the sun. “I bought your books too.”

He pulls the selection towards him, culled from his desk in the console room: _A Brief History of Arakkidian Diplomacy, Teach Yourself To Knit In Three Easy Steps_ and _Doctor Zhivago_. He reopens the knitting book, watching her read from behind the cover of its pages.

He would never, _ever_ feed her ego-mania by telling her, of course; but at this time and in this place she is as beautiful to him as the birth of stars. Surprisingly round face and all.

It is some time before he unexpectedly catches her eye and suddenly realises she is doing exactly the same. Her eyes snap back to her book, colour flooding her face, and he swallows the lurch in his stomach. Resistance has to start now if he is to have any chance of putting their relationship back on a more platonic footing.

He clears his throat. “I should… make a start on some repairs to the navigation system.”

“Oh, ok. Are we leaving?”

“Not right away. You can… you stay here. Enjoy the sun and- and the books for a bit longer.”

“Right,” she says, and even he can hear the disappointment in her tone. “I’ll do that then.”

He nods, thoroughly miserable himself, hands straying to unconsciously straighten the picnic blanket. “I’ll see you later.”

“Later,” she agrees.

He moves to pick up his books, to return them all to the safety of the picnic basket before he leaves. Clearly she has had the same idea, their fingers brushing unintentionally on the cover of _Doctor Zhivago_.

“Doctor…” She is all eyes in her face, a trait he has never been able to fully understand. “Are you _sure_ you’re okay?”

“No,” he croaks, suddenly unable to look away from her. “I’m not okay.”

“Well, can I hel-?”

Her question is lost as he kisses her. This is no gentle question; all the frustration of the unsolvable puzzle that his impossible girl remains is poured into capturing her mouth. She returns the kiss with even ferocity, taking hold of his lapels and pulling him down to the picnic blanket. Her hands move under his shirt, warm against his skin, and he breaks away suddenly.

He takes a breath, wondering how in the universe he can possibly distil the complexities of their situation into human speech.

“Shut up,” she says, softly, before he has even spoken a word.

“You don’t know what I’m going to say.”

“I don’t mean that,” she says, confusingly, “I mean that little voice inside of you that makes this complicated.”

He blinks. “Isn’t it?”

“Not terribly, no.”

He tries again. “But I… One day you won’t−And then−”

“I know. And then you will _find someone else_. And that’s okay. That’s the way it should be. You’ve had _four_ wives, are you seriously telling me you haven’t worked that out yet?”

He opens and closes his mouth a few times. “I suppose not.”

“Slow learner,” she replies affectionately, fingers now tracing a circle on his back.

“Well, if you’re offering to teach me...”

“Apparently I am _quite_ good at that.”  

“Shut up,” he replies, kissing her again, just to be sure.

* * *

 

They spend the afternoon climbing the pyramid. Sunset on high is something to see on Treloath.

“Well?” he asks, when they finally stand on the high balcony amongst the palette of pink and gold.

“It is beautiful,” she agrees, tugging the picnic blanket more tightly around her shoulders. The warmth of the day is ebbing fast with the sun. Inky blue seeps into the sky, pin prick stars beginning to show. She stands, grinning up at the darkening sky. With no light pollution is seems as if the universe has been poured overhead; a thousand constellations coming into view.

“Pick one,” he says quietly.

“Hmm?”

“Pick one. Make it a good one.”

“That one.”

He holds out his hand. “Come on then.”

There’s a lot for them to see together, after all. 


	5. Five

_A long time in the future…_

There are a lot of strange noises in the Citadel at night. It isn’t the first time she’s been woken by a scritch or a scrabble, only to find it’s the pipes of the frankly antiquated heating system, footsteps in the hall above, or a on one notable occasion a flutterwing futilely attempting to mate with her desk lamp.

_This_ noise sounds an awful lot like someone overriding the door security systems, however. She rolls soundlessly out of bed as the door swishes open.

Regrettably “use as a weapon” is something the interior designers of her chambers have overlooked as a quality in most of the fixtures and fittings. If push comes to shove she’s probably going to have to defend herself with the desk chair, and that’s just embarrassing.

She settles for opening the bedroom door instead, arms folded and her most commanding voice used to ask: “Who are you, and what the hell are you doing in my chambers at two in the morning?”

He clicks on the aforementioned desk lamp. “Uh, breaking the terms of my release from prison, trespassing, and committing criminal damage to your door security systems. Oh, and it’s me, by the way.”

The Doctor. Her knees buckle.

He catches her, grinning. “I’m glad to see you haven’t forgotten me.”

“How can you be here? They banished you and-and…”

“Yes, yes, yes, I know. I was there. They’re hardly going to execute one of the saviours of Gallifrey now though, are they? And it’s hard to see how they could come up with a punishment more extreme than never setting foot on my home planet and seeing you ever again.”

She is crying she realises; hot tears spilling down her cheeks. “Oh God,” she sobs, “I thought… I thought I would never see you again.”

“Yes, well,” he replies, “I couldn’t exactly tell you in the courtroom how easy it is to break in and out of this place, could I?”

She cannot reply, the sobs boiling out of her chest now, a month of carefully repressed emotion erupting all at once. He pats her on the back, rather ineffectively, as she cries into his shirt. “Oh, I could kill you,” she says, when she can finally choke out words.

“I know. I’m sorry.”

“No you’re not. Not sorry enough.”

He gives her a kiss, unusually tender, in reply. She doesn’t have to crane her neck like she used to, she realises, his hands wrapping around her in a different place and−

She breaks away. “I’m sorry,” she gasps, “It’s not that I don’t−I still want to. It’s just it…”

“Feels different,” he says, a little sadly, “I know.” He glances at her mirror, which she has covered with a curtain. “How’re you finding it?”

She lets out a shaky laugh. “It’s horrendous. I never thought… I never thought about how stupid things like taking the stairs becomes difficult when your legs are suddenly a different length. And how food just tastes all _wrong_.”

And most of all, she doesn’t say, the stranger that looks back at her out of the mirror.

It’s not that her new body is _bad_. It’s just not _hers_.

“When does it stop?” The question she hasn’t dared speak aloud to any Time Lord here.

He shrugs. “A few weeks, normally, for the food and the stairs. The face in the mirror though… that might take a little longer.” He traces a finger down her cheek. “You don’t look so different to me.”

He kisses her again. This time she lets herself relax into his embrace, concentrating on the familiar: the smell of him, the way he holds her. The rush of heat, the sudden and sharp need for him; these are feelings she recognises.

“We don’t have to−” he manages, as her hands find their way under his clothes.

“Shut up,” she replies firmly.

“Yes Clara.”

* * *

“So, tell me what’s been going on since I left.”

They are still entwined in each other and the bedsheets, his fingers ghosting across the bare skin of her back. 

“No,” she says, “I need to know what was happening before. They wouldn’t tell me anything; I didn’t even know you were alive until the day in court.”

“Hmm,” he sighs, “Well, I was busy bleeding to death in the War Room, as you know. Held in a stasis field to prevent me regenerating.” Unbidden, her fingers find the puckered scar, healing on his abdomen. “And then some maniac woman burst in having stolen my TARDIS, looked into the Untempered Schism, absorbed the power of the Vortex and used it to blast through the Dalek defence force. Ouch!”

Clara has punched him lightly on the arm. “Well, when you put it like that,” she says.

“I know,” he says proudly, “It sounds like something I’d do.”

“Did you see me… you know.” She swallows. “Regenerate?”

 He shakes his head. “No. I was passed out by then. Came to under armed guard after surgery. Something about breaching the sacred laws of my people and allowing lesser species access to higher technology.”

She sighs, shaking her head. “Lesser species…”

“I know. But that’s part of why you’re here. Teaching them to think differently. How are you finding that, by the way?”

She considers the question for a moment. “It’s different. There’s some that think I should have been executed. Others that treat me like I’m some sort of saviour. Most are just as attentive as my students back at Coal Hill…”

“Not very?” he suggests, but she is light years away, thinking of the planet she has lost; a life there left half-lived. He plays with her hair, waiting for her to come back to him.

“Anyway… it’s different because I spend most of my time as a student, not their teacher.”

He makes a face. “Yeah, I’m sorry about that.”

She chuckles. “I can’t believe you found it boring. There’s so much to learn.”

“Well, talk to me in two hundred years is all I’m saying.”

“I might,” she breathes, still finding it difficult to wrap her head around the concept of her near immortality, “I mean, I actually _could_ , I should still be here… Doesn’t that scare you?”

He gives her a look. “That I’ll come back and find you’re running the place by then? A little, yes-”

“Shut up. You know what I mean.”

“No,” he says, “I really don’t. How could you _not_ dying be scary?”

She touches a finger to his temple, mouth quirking. Her initial attempts at telepathy have been limited to controlled scenarios in the classroom. “I could… show you?”

“Go on then.”

She closes her eyes and breathes in deeply, trying to focus. She can _feel_ him, an itch behind her eyes. In her mind’s eye she is reaching out to him, trying to push the feeling across the void between them…

And suddenly he is all around her, stretching out in every direction. A vast ocean into which her raindrop has fallen. Stars wheel overhead and she feels a curious tug; the expanding front of the universe rushing away from them both, interrupted by fragments of speech and flashes of light. She gasps and opens her eyes.

He is still lying beneath her, smiling his shark’s smile. She wonders how the shape of a man can possibly hold all that he is; all that he was and will be. _Bigger on the inside._

“Are you okay?”

“Yes,” she whispers, “And no.” She gulps, trying to centre herself. “I guess I need a bit more practice at that.”

“Give it time,” he says, brushing hair out of her eyes. When his fingers touch her skin she can barely breathe, her heart swelling with mingled pride and awe. It takes a moment for her to realise the feeling isn’t hers but _his_ ; a fierce and jealous love. The kind that can topple empires and burn up suns.

_The kind that would willingly sacrifice itself doing something stupid, like looking into the Time Vortex._

For a moment she understands why the Time Lords have enacted this terrible punishment on them; condemning them to centuries apart. Why they fear the very people that saved them from an eternity of suffering in the parallel pocket universe.

They fear what they might do next.

* * *

_What they do next is what they’ve always done._

It’s Wednesday night and Clara is waiting in the dark of the repair shop. The TARDIS−for she will always by _the_ TARDIS, no matter how many others Clara meets here in the Citadel− materialises with a familiar wheezing groan.

He has bought her flowers, horrible spikey things she has a feeling are probably carnivorous. She accepts them graciously anyway.

“Why did you want to meet here?”

“Something to show you,” she replies, pulling back dust covers.

“Ooooooh,” he enthuses, “It can’t be…?”

“It is.”

He rubs his hands together with glee at the revelation. “A tribophysical waveform macro-kinetic extrapolator.”

“ _Two_ tribophysical waveform macro-kinetic extrapolators. And according to the Observatory predictions, the Second Sun of the Seventeen is going to produce a solar flare tonight. So what do you say, Doctor? Fancy going solar surfing?”

“Sounds good to me. To start with, anyway.”

She rolls her eyes and follows him into the TARDIS. 


End file.
